Turbo Gold Deluxe Slot Review

Yggdrasil Gaming is definitely getting their money's worth out of the Gigablox mechanic. While they've experimented with different shapes and scatter pays in recent games, Turbo Gold Deluxe brings things back to basics.

If this game feels a little too familiar, you aren't crazy. On paper it looks a lot like late 2021's Gator Gold Deluxe Gigablox. It has the exact same 6-reel setup, high volatility, and 10,000x max win. The shared DNA is so obvious that they even left an internal label from the old animal game on the top symbol in the code! Whether the maths underneath is the same too, the figures on their own can't say.

Visually, they've gone for a classic Vegas fruit machine on steroids. The reels are set inside a heavy gold frame against a stormy blue, lightning-streaked background. You've got all your old-school favorites: Golden 7s, Cherries, Bells, Clovers, and Horseshoes as the premium symbols, with standard A-9 card royals filling in the blanks. It looks slick and flashy, even if the theme isn't exactly breaking new ground.

Before you spin, here is what you are dealing with:

• The Grid: 6 reels, 4 rows, and 4,096 ways to win.
• Betting: Anywhere from 0.20 to 200 a spin.
• RTP (Return to Player): Casinos can choose from four RTP settings: 96%, 94%, 92%, or a low 90.5%, and the help file at each casino shows which one it runs. (The version I tested was set to 94% for both the base game and bonus buys).
• Volatility: High. You'll see a win on roughly 1 in 4.5 spins (22.1% hit rate), so expect some dry spells.
• Max Win: 10,000x your bet.

The star of the show is the Gigablox mechanic. On every spin, random reels sync up and drop massive blocks ranging from 2x2 up to 4x4.

Here's the catch, though: the base paytable is honestly pretty terrible. Eight of the eleven symbols won't even get your bet back if you hit a 3-of-a-kind, and a full line of the top-paying Golden 7s only gives you 6x your bet. To actually make decent money, you need those giant blocks to land and multiply your winning ways. When they don't connect, which happens a lot, it's incredibly frustrating. You'll see big, exciting-looking blocks drop, only for them to pay nothing.

Because the base game can be a slog, you really just want to get to the Free Spins. You need 5 or more scatters to trigger it (each scatter gives you 1 to 3 spins), or you can just buy the bonus outright for 60x your bet.

The game also gives you a chance to spin a gamble wheel to win more free spins. On my 14 spins, both wheels were worth fewer spins on average than the 14 I already had. The odds are stacked against you, and one bad spin wipes out your entire bonus.

Once you're actually in the free spins, the game gets really fun. You're trying to collect "Upgrade" symbols that land on the 6th reel. Every time you collect three, it upgrades your lowest premium symbol into the next one up the ladder and gives you two extra spins. Throw in some x2 and x3 multiplier wilds, and the potential really starts to snowball. I bought the bonus once and walked away with about 3x my buy-in, mostly thanks to a well-placed x2 wild connecting with a huge block of Clovers.

Turbo Gold Deluxe is a solid addition to the Gigablox family, but it relies heavily on its bonus round to be entertaining. The base game can be a bit of a grind against that weak paytable.

However, the upgrade mechanic (similar to Buffalo Blitz 3), where the goal is to slowly flood the screen with top-tier symbols, is where the game comes alive. Hitting that 10,000x max win would take an absolute miracle of a screen completely covered in Golden 7s.